


two hearts, one valve

by sky_blue_hightops



Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Oscar Pine Needs a Hug, Post-Season/Series 07 Finale, Post-Volume 7 (RWBY), Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:41:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sky_blue_hightops/pseuds/sky_blue_hightops
Summary: Oscar and Ozpin after the fall.
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine, Jaune Arc & Oscar Pine & Lie Ren & Nora Valkyrie, Ozpin & Oscar Pine
Comments: 7
Kudos: 142





	two hearts, one valve

**Author's Note:**

> i tripped and fell into a pit of no motivation and then i tripped and fell into a new fandom sorry

Everything begins to fade dark. The walls of the pit around him blur and twist, streaks of neon and black falling with him; his eyes grow heavy and then there is only black, hazy, deep...

_Oscar!_

A voice, loud yet distant, ablaze with concern; electricity in his veins, slipping from his heart to his hands-

And his eyes snap open.

The crackling warmth stretches out, out, starting from somewhere he can’t feel and ending somewhere he can’t reach. No more words fill the sudden static in his head, but the presence that washes over is one he cannot claim as his own. It wipes away the pain for a split second, clearing his thoughts and blinking him awake.

Awake...Oscar twists his head, the wind tugging at his hair, and he only has half a heartbeat until the panic of _oh crap I’m falling_ grips the unsteady, fluttering place between his lungs. What- where-

He takes in a breath that stutters, his eyes almost slamming shut again at the fire alight and curling around his shoulder and ribs. And he’s _still falling_. The warmth rises again, gentle, cradling, and it’s only once the tension in his chest unwinds that he brings himself to focus on his surroundings. Falling...nothing under him, the world rocking around him. And falling with him?

He reaches for the cane. The warmth spreads down his arm. It tightens in his fingers, guiding him towards the dials he’s spent so many hours fiddling absently with, encouraging his grip around the handle and the guard. The electricity he’s grown to know since waking - it leaps out, uncoiling and fighting him with each move he makes, and he just _knows_ to not resist.

_It's about time I gave you its name, Oscar._

And the world explodes in every direction.

* * *

The next thing he knows, clearly, is that the snow burns cold and bright under his knees.

Magic fizzles out under his hands and above his head, an echo of green lingering barely in the snow drifting down around him. Oscar wavers before pushing himself to his feet-

The snow burns cold and bright under his palms. He blinks away pricking tears; from the wind, maybe from the height, from the fear pulsing still - black spots dancing like the ash he can taste in the back of his throat.

He rises again. There’s an unsteady tremor in his hands when he holds them up. “That power,” Oscar breathes, “these memories. You’re back, aren’t you? You saved me.”

He’s fallen before. He’s breathed before, enough to last the world and beyond it. He’s twisted shaking fingers before, curled them under the hems of gloves, felt a beating pulse and remembered what it meant to _live_.

He has? They have?

For one stark moment he’s afraid of no response. The thought stills his chest just barely - hadn’t he, at one point, wished for that? Hadn’t he wanted a mind and body completely to himself, a destiny of his own making?

Yeah, he had. But now-

He’s still pretty pissed about the whole situation, the events that brought them here, the events that left him trailing behind the flock, running and running to keep up. He’s pissed about Ironwood (who shoots a _kid?_ who leaves an entire city to _die_??). About the others, at first, for the pressure, the expectations, the eagerness to shove _Oscar_ aside for the image they’d made of _Ozpin._ He’s pissed about Ozpin for the lies, even for good reason, and for him being the origin of all this stress.

But after all they’ve been through so far? He’s grown sick of the silence. He wants to help. And he wants Ozpin back. Oscar _misses_ him.

The warmth from before nudges and turns and shifts into something more familiar. _Actually…_ Ozpin’s voice is sudden but Oscar doesn’t even flinch, just lets a small smile break through his exhaustion. _**You** saved us._

A brief lull. A roar overhead reminds him of just how far he’d fallen, and he tilts his head to gaze up at the city and the sky beyond. _Oscar, I-_

“Stop.” He knows what will follow. He can feel the apology burning just under the surface, having waited weeks to be said, but Oscar’s knees have gone weak and now isn’t the time, not with all the lives at stake. All the words he hasn’t spoken? They deserve their own time and weight. Right now, he has people to save. “All I want to know is how we save Atlas next.”

His energy dips. The adrenaline fades out quickly, the buzz of Ozpin’s magic and the cane’s power not far behind, and it leaves him shivering and stumbling to find his footing. _I think-_ Ozpin sounds caught between amusement and worry, words soft and clear. _Perhaps start with a short rest. You need shelter. Our aura is…_ Oscar fists his hands, reaches and reaches, but nothing responds. An anger builds. It’s not his own; it spirals from the shadows of his awareness. He needs a moment to realize it’s from Ozpin, tense and protective at the memory of how they’d left Atlas behind. _Our aura was...fractured._

Oscar nods and regrets it, dizzy - but Mantle is so close, and they never had much time in the first place. “Isn’t there anything you can do while I walk?”

Ozpin, normally fairly closed off when they need to focus, lets some of his own fatigue bleed into the space where they mix. So that’s a no, and Oscar isn’t surprised - he’s been through quite a bit today and Ozpin hasn’t had any presence in weeks. _We need to get out of the cold. You aren’t protected from it anymore._

Every move he makes lights up with pain. Fighting the strange girl with the parasol bruised him, running to keep up wore him down, and confronting Ironwood finally broke him. Agony webs out from where the bullet struck his shoulder before it deflected off his shielding, and he drops that hand, limp now that the pain’s caught up, with a jagged breath. “Oz-”

_I’m sorry, Oscar, I can’t do anything for the pain except take control._ Oscar sighs at the impression of Ozpin’s urgency, suddenly very tired. All the magic that had filled him entirely just a few minutes ago left nothing behind when it dissolved, nothing but an odd woozy feeling and a numbness he can’t shake. “S’okay,” he replies. He can brave the tiredness and the pain. He’s been cold...ish before; he’s used to not being able to engage his aura. “...But we can’t stop yet.”

_Actually-_

“Nope.”

_But-_

“Oz, no.”

_I really think-_

“Strike three,” he mumbles, and steps forward only for his leg to buckle under him. Oscar lands roughly on one knee, struggling to catch his breath, before pushing himself back up with his cane and shaking out the lingering weakness. “Shh. You’re messing with my concentration.”

_The only thing you **should** be concentrating on is regaining your strength,_ Ozpin mutters. Oscar can’t fault the old wizard for his concern - he knows how weak he is on his own feet. He can taste blood in the back of his throat, metallic and familiar from his own ragged breathing. But - he has to _go_.

A brief twist of a complicated cousin to regret. It flares before Ozpin can get a handle on it, and Oscar presses his good hand flat to his chest. _I never meant for you to have to face this alone_.

“I’m not alone now, am I?” Oscar tugs at his jacket collar, then freezes comically. “The answer is yes. Don’t you dare change your mind.”

Pure amusement. _I wasn’t planning on it_.

Both their voices quiet as he begins picking across the landscape; Oscar saving his energy for walking, Ozpin adjusting from weeks of near-silence. Oscar’s path deeper into Mantle’s slums winds with no rhyme or reason. The wind batters him hard enough to bring an angry flush to his face and stinging tears to his eyes; he scrubs them away with his good hand and ignores the scratch of his beaten-up gloves against his skin. The ice in the gusts proves almost numbing, and even as hard as it is to stand, the pain recedes enough for him to stay on his feet.

“Hey, Oz?” A light shift in acknowledgment. “Why’d you come back? Why now?”

_Our aura being so thoroughly shattered sent quite the shockwave,_ Ozpin explains. _And, I suppose...it is hard to draw away from a bravery as bright as yours._

It’s a flash of a vulnerability Oscar’s seen before and refuses to take lightly. He shakes his head, pace faltering before he forges onwards. His fingers find the gears in Long Memory’s handle absently, fidgeting and steadying his scrambled emotions. “Thanks, I guess?”

_Also, I care about you greatly and I cannot imagine a full-force landing from Atlas to Mantle with no protection proving good for one’s health._ The briefest of pauses, Ozpin’s confidence turning to hesitance instead. ... _I’m proud of you._

At any point before now and he might’ve bristled at that, still hurt from being left on his own. But the concern bleeding between them is near-overwhelming, layered with sincerity, and he lets his smile grow. “Could say the same for you,” he says, and he means it.

He gets what he can only describe as softness in return. It makes the next few steps much easier.

* * *

The slums stretch on for much longer than Oscar would’ve guessed solely from what he’d seen from above. “We almost there?” He slurs, eyes heavy, steps heavier.

_The city proper isn’t much farther, yes._ The jagged edge of Ozpin’s worry settles into words he holds back, but Oscar doesn’t have the energy left to reassure him. _Once you reach the streets-_

“Shelter, yeah, I know,” Oscar parrots, entirely unconvinced, and both of them know it. But the buildings loom very tall over him and that combined with his lingering dizziness both make him feel as if he’s sinking into the ground slowly, slowly; like if he were to stop altogether, he’d melt into the snow and fade away in the drifts.

The skyline tilts and stretches around him. Oscar thinks he might be losing his balance, but sounds filter in muffled and bruised, just like those days he has sometimes where everything feels too far away and not nearly _enough_ to keep him anchored in reality. The noises might be voices, the shouts of people left behind. They might be his imagination.

One holds out clear and real over the rest. _Oscar, you need to find shelter. Your commitment, while admirable, is only going to weaken you further._

“Mm.” He’s so cold. He’s never been this cold before. Mistral is the perfect place to live without the protection of your aura, the mild temperatures ever-present and the snow...well, nonexistent. Solitas is a completely different story, and he’d been a little foolish to think he could hold out on his own.

Only a little. He has a job to do, no matter what.

_Foolishness that looks like bravery isn’t the same at all,_ Ozpin sighs, and warmth blooms across the back of his neck and the side of his face. Oscar would lean into the gentleness, if it were solid. _Will you listen to reason, now?_

“Maaaybe.” But Ozpin withdraws suddenly, very slightly, from the childish tone. Oscar almost withdraws himself; Ozpin isn’t caught off guard by much, but Oscar can tell how shaken he is. “Oz?”

_Nothing, I-_ And then he’s close once more, sure and steady. _Nothing. I was merely reminded…_

Echoes of old memories slip past Ozpin’s control. Flashes of high voices, of a fondness and a connection that’s both familiar and foreign at the same time. “Oh. Sorry.”

_Don’t be. Not on my account._ And, because apparently near-death experiences inspire emotional vulnerability, Ozpin continues. _It is...nice._

Oscar thinks he understands.

_I meant it about listening to reason. Oscar, your hands-_ He tries to raise them both, but his left remains loose at his side. His right obeys, steady. _They aren’t shaking._

“That’s good, right?” He curls and uncurls his fingers, unable to feel the fabric of his glove fold against his joints. “Not as cold?”

_The opposite, actually._ Ozpin turns restless, and it’s almost uncomfortable against the drowsiness Oscar’s losing his fight with. _If we- if I could just-_

“No, I...” Frustration knots at the base of his lungs and he instinctively shakes his head, trying to keep his focus up and his control strong. “I’ve got it. Don’t have t’worry.” So of course Ozpin pushes more worry at him, exasperation evident, and Oscar sticks his tongue out and screws up his face.

He feels bad about breaking into someone’s abandoned house - Ozpin exaggerates whatever the mental equivalent of a facepalm is - but alleyways cut dim and unbroken by the wind between buildings. He stumbles straight for the nearest one. Against the brick walls and cement dividers leans metal sheeting, discarded tarps strewn wildly, and he accepts the image that appears in the edges of his mind’s eye.

The tarps are rough but thick when he gathers a few up, and the metal sheets are light and easy to move. “Good idea,” Oscar replies, and arranges it all according to Ozpin’s guidance before ducking inside and crashing to his knees. Slight relief from the cold is instantaneous - his eyes slip shut and he lists sideways for one sweet second before he snaps awake. His scroll…

He fumbles with the inside of his jacket, good hand clumsy as he unearths the small device. It’s intact, mostly, but it’s marked with a deep spiderweb of cracks and the surface’s frame is pretty busted. Oscar curses and smashes the power button - the entire screen blinks red once, mocking. No battery. Of course.

The dizziness he thought he’d left behind comes back in a wave. The scroll drops from his hand and he wavers on his knees - the makeshift tent spins wildly around him -

_Oscar? Oscar!_

The snow burns cold and bright under his cheek. His right hand scrabbles for purchase against the ground. There’s warmth weaving through his hair, there’s a voice a million miles away, there’s breath frozen in his lungs, and for the life of him...he can’t keep his eyes open...

His hand finds the scroll. Is it his hand? A pulse of magic spirals from his fingertips, sparking and crackling over the shattered glass. The screen flashes red, then green, then a pure, blinding white, then red once more. The screen goes completely, wholly dark-

-and with it, Oscar’s consciousness.

* * *

The next time he wakes, it’s unpleasantly. Pain throbs hot behind his eyes, around his shoulder and down his arm and chest. He doesn’t feel quite so cold. He’s beginning to realize that...might be bad. _Yes. Yes it is._

“Okay, mister Know-It-All,” he snaps back - it comes out soft and hazy. He can’t draw in a deep breath. His breathing picks up against his will, and he clutches his chest and yanks at the belt keeping his shirt in place. His throat goes tight, far too tight, and the belt can’t come off fast enough. _Take a deep breath and calm down. You’re hyperventilating._

He’s only dimly aware of Ozpin’s warning. Air, sharp like ice and not enough, can’t seem to sink to the bottom of his lungs. _Breathe in slowly. Steady; you will be okay._ He puffs out the breath he’d been holding to draw in a new one, stuttering, and warmth brightens in return. _Good. Let it go._ He lets it go. He draws in a new one, holds it. Lets it go. _We’ve got to be careful, there’s likely still-_

A low, loud rumble outside his shelter.

_-Grimm in the area_. Oscar refuses to panic again out of sheer spite. He’s had one hell of a day and frankly, he thinks the curses he bites out are within his rights. “Way to jinx it, Oz.”

_I won’t dignify that with a response._ Oscar scoops up the remains of his scroll and pockets them, reaching numbly out to find his cane. “You technically just did,” he points out, taking comfort in the way it fits in his hands. Something looms over his shelter, blocking out the weak light.

_A proclamation of no response does not count as one_. Oscar pushes up with his right hand. Black static brings him right back down, the cane and his hand trapped under his chest and his heartbeat roaring in his ears. He’s too tired to banter. He’s too tired to get up. He’s too tired to do anything besides blink rapidly and feel his fingers twitch under him. “Hh, Oz-” He won’t panic. He won’t. “Oz, I can’t move.”

_I suppose hoping you don’t find trouble was just too much,_ Ozpin remarks dryly. Oscar would huff a laugh if he had the air or the time, but whatever’s passed in front of the light comes crashing down on the metal sheeting not even two or three feet away.

The fatigue Ozpin had been leeching evaporates like water dripped in a fire, shoved away and stowed for later as his constant warmth blazes something brighter. It feels like staring at the sun - Oscar can’t pull his focus away, but there are spots in his vision and it feels like the entire sky is pinning him to the ground. Neither of them expects how they fit together, how it shifts slightly, how Ozpin tips forwards and Oscar falls back, back, back-

Ozpin freezes instantly. “I didn’t mean-” But Oscar knows he knows the full weight of the boy’s exhaustion, and huddles closer for a second before withdrawing enough to make a point. “Oh, alright.” He changes his grip on their cane, back straightening, hissing as he adjusts to the waves of pain that brings. “Rest. I’ve got you.”

_Yeah you do,_ Oscar mumbles and Ozpin gets the vague impression of motivational finger guns. An image of a sleepy Oscar with a bowl of popcorn watching the fight lingers in the space where they mix; Ozpin dismisses it with mild amusement. “Don’t drift too far,” he whispers. Memories dwell in the shadows. Regrets haunt the spaces Ozpin cannot reach when he is in control like this. But Oscar remains near, albeit very drowsily. A thumbs up. A warmth that’s roughly the mental version of Oscar latching onto his sleeve, passive yet close.

The fight is, if he may boast, something worth watching. Even confined to five feet and three inches of bruising and (likely) hypothermia, he is a storm with his cane in hand, quick to advance and quick to dodge, a confidence behind each stroke that makes up for the lack of raw strength. Ozpin is free from the makeshift shelter and throwing his momentum towards the Grimm before it even registers he’s moved, cracking down on the weak spots he knows from centuries of experience and striking with a two-handed grip that, for anyone else, would limit speed.

He lands several solid hits. He ~~stumbles~~ steps backwards, calculating in his retreat, dodging the sharp teeth and claws that descend on him. In his moment of defense, his left arm locks up and his cane’s handle clatters to the ground. All this happens before he can react. All this happens before he can blink.

_Oz-_ He stumbles another step. He bends to reclaim Long Memory and doubles over from the pain. The Grimm rears up, front legs a pair of massive, pulsing shadows and claws glittering and ready to be stained red with a lucky slash. Ozpin is quick but he’s not invincible, and he can’t outrun the pain that settles in when the adrenaline of their switch dries up. _Oz, move!_

He does. He’s got his cane and he’s running before the alarm can fade from Oscar’s voice, shaky but loud. He isn’t in nearly as much danger of passing out as Oscar was; the boy took his mental exhaustion with him, and that was at least half the problem. But he needs his cane to walk and his head spins faster than he can keep up with and there’s a worsening stitch in his side he can’t shake. _Oz, uh, I think-_

“Just a second,” he grits out, weighing the risks of looking back. He can’t _hear_ it following close enough to prove a danger, but then again he can’t hear much over the rush of blood in his ears. _Uh, crap, **Oz-**_

Oscar pushes forwards. Ozpin’s so caught off guard by this that it isn’t hard for Oscar to regain a few threads of control; he expects the boy to tug harder and take over, but instead Oscar tilts their line of sight down and brings their good hand to paw at their coat. Both of them curse.

Their white shirt blooms red. The stain spreads a little too quickly, a bright contrast against the green of their coat, and their vision wavers violently. Are they tipping forwards? He can’t tell. _Oz, don’t you **dare** , I can’t-_

He thinks they might both be panicking, which is decidedly not ideal. Their blood splatters dark and warm on the snow below when he presses their hand against the wound, red dripping down their gloves and pooling around his boots and seeping into the cracks in the pavement in the shadow they cast under the sunset, under Atlas, under-

_Keep moving._ Oscar’s presence is the only comfort in this moment where he can’t tear their gaze from the blood his wound won’t stop _spilling_. He staggers forwards once, twice. There is warmth around his wrists and forearms, and he does not know if it’s their life draining red trails down their skin or Oscar’s grip.

A flash, a burn in their irises. _Oz. We’ve had worse. We aren’t dying, not now._ _I promise._ He doesn’t trust himself. But he trusts Oscar.

It’s a good thing Long Memory is still in his limp hand, grasped loosely, because if he’d had to bend over to get it, they probably wouldn’t get back up again. The wound is thankfully deep in his left side, meaning he can shift all his weight to his good hand without much trouble. Well. Relatively speaking.

Long Memory hums gently in his palm, the gears working quietly, and he steels himself to draw in a breath. The first real step after that hurts more than he can process, flaring white-hot, and he tenses and rides it out. It gets easier with each one. The blood on his hands dries a dull rust, flaking under their fingernails.

They pass a few blocks, pace slow and thoughts slower. Ozpin drags his gaze up, locking onto the nearest alleyway. It’s filled with metal sheeting and beige tarps, and for one startling second, he wonders if they’ve just looped back to the start. But no Grimm lies in wait, and there’s no red in the untouched - if not dirty - sludge of snow piled against the bordering buildings.

Oscar’s gone quiet. Ozpin can still sense him close; he’s heeded Ozpin’s warning to the letter, unwilling to leave the wizard’s presence or recede any further back than he has to. The boy stirs at Ozpin’s momentary alarm, but settles when Ozpin realizes _no_ , they’re safe, it’s just that his surroundings have all managed to blend together. Also, Mantle apparently has only one brand of metal sheeting and one brand of tarp. _This one smells bad._

“But this one doesn’t have a Grimm in it.” The alleyway in question is quite a bit darker than the first. Ozpin shivers when he steps into its shadows, pausing to pull their coat tighter around himself. He sees the tarps and the sheets, but even the thought of building a shelter is exhausting. Oscar pushes him an image of collapsing on the spot and having a nap. “Tempting,” Ozpin mutters. “Why must I be the responsible one?”

_You’re older. S’pposed to protect me._

“And look how well that’s gone, hm?” Oscar drops the playful-innocent act, burning brighter in indignation. Ozpin can’t tell if Oscar’s mad at his self-deprecation or him claiming responsibility for all the trouble Oscar had gotten _**himself** into perfectly well, thank you very much-_

“Your attempts at levity-” He ignores the angry squawk of _attempts??_ with a hint of a smile, “-are much appreciated. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that you’re supposed to be resting right now. And that we should have an actual talk about all of this at some point.”

Oscar quiets with a grumble. _An Actual Talk_. _What are you, my dad?_

He takes it for the joke it’s meant to be at face value and spares Oscar the slight awkwardness he picks up from the boy’s indirect admission. “I won’t dignify that with a response. Go to bed.” Oscar’s already halfway there, voice fuzzy, tension loosening.

_Not until you do_ , he mumbles. The end of his sentence trails off. Ozpin reaches out mentally - a smaller hand closes around his. _Rest now. Save the world...in a bit…_

Ozpin reconsiders faceplanting but decides against it. They’re still losing quite a bit of blood, even if Ozpin has a more secure hold on keeping his control, keeping his hands on the wound, and keeping their body awake. He pushes as hard as he can, but it must be too hard because the next thing he knows, he’s catching himself against the side of the building with a freshly-bloodstained hand and Oscar’s making some sort of racket in their head, worried.

“Oscar-” He swallows roughly, head nodding to their chest. “Sorry,” he gets out. He should’ve taken the time to attempt to restore some of their aura earlier. It’s a strain, but he tightens his fist and tries - something, _anything_ to get it to respond. It doesn’t. He only gets in return the odd, draining feeling of a soul fractured and running on empty.

He didn’t _do_ anything. He _can’t_ do anything.

_Wait-!_ But the blood loss pulls at Oscar, too. Neither of them has the energy to keep going, not in the cold and the exposed, not like this.

He hopes the scroll got a message out. He hopes whoever comes can still find them, blocks away from their last known location. He hopes the bleeding stops, that they don’t freeze to death. Maybe he shouldn’t have come back - maybe this could’ve gone differently-

_No._ And as the world fades around them: _stay_.

* * *

Jaune is...numb?

He’s barely tuned into Nora’s excited, fired-up bouncing around him as she readies to go busting out the doors and into the streets of Mantle. She’d only taken half a look at the scroll clutched tightly in Jaune’s hands before extrapolating all she needed to know, bitter grief channelled to excitement and a loud, demanding worry instead. Ren sat next to him, poking at a map with the sort of unilateral focus and calm only Ren could have in a situation like this, already past identifying their next step and already working towards accomplishing it.

_A situation like this._ Jaune can’t look away from his screen - he’d been staring at it before the alert, trying to comprehend the empty bar under Oscar’s name and picture, wrestling with memories of another empty bar and another type of numb hurt.

Then the entire screen had flashed the brightest possible white, and he’d almost dropped it when he flinched away, squinting. Oscar’s bar flared - a full green? - then dropped back to zero before his whole picture flushed out grey and faded against his scroll’s backdrop.

He’d forgotten his grief entirely. He’d- he’d been confused, first and foremost, as hope twisted upset and sour in his throat. Then Ren, leaned against his shoulder, had noticed. Then Nora, pacing the length of their space, had turned to look without prompting. Because Nora just _sensed_ these kinds of things.

And then: chaos.

“He’s alive? He’s alive!” combined with “I can track his location-” combined with “my little BOY hurry UP, you two!” combined with “how is he out _there_?” combined with-

Jaune blinks, taking a last look at Oscar’s greyed-out picture before standing abruptly. He steps forwards, settling into a role he fits well. They’ve gotta be quick. The heating’s off, the city’s in chaos, and there sure as hell must be a reason for Oscar to be all the way down in Mantle with his aura broken. “We’ll-” He glances at Ren, who meets his gaze with steel, and Nora, who’s pretty much already halfway out the door. His smile is brief and grim, but there nonetheless. “We’ll be back soon,” he offers the others, and then team JNR is _gone_.

Nothing like a good free-fall to burn off the lingering grip of panic and trauma.

* * *

When they land, it isn’t far from the dot on Ren’s map. None of the doors are visibly busted in... it’s hard to imagine Oscar willingly breaking and entering an innocent family’s home, even if they _are_ evacuated, so they turn their attention to the nearby alleyways. “Oscar!” Jaune cups his hands around his mouth, voice raw. He doesn’t care about the Grimm lurking nearby. He doesn’t care about anyone lying in wait - he just needs to make sure, for himself, that Oscar’s with them and okay. That comes before _anything_ else in this frozen, unflinching ghost town. “ _Oscar!_ ”

“Uhh, guys?” The boys’ attention snaps to Nora, who stands half in the shadow of a building, half in the weak light. She scuffs the ground with her shoe, toe digging into a snowbank. Her hand jolts into a fist. Her shoe comes away red. And when she steps back - the pavement cracks with large, splitting claw marks. “He’s not- he’s not here. Anymore.”

They rush to her side. The black ash that coats the ground makes it almost slippery, and Jaune steadies Ren when he falters. There’s... _too_ much blood dripped in the snow, pinpricks of nauseating red, and he barely feels the tremor that overtakes his hands. He sees - he remembers Oscar’s meter flashing full. Then he remembers it dropping instantly back to zero.

The truth crawls up his throat but he refuses to speak it, releasing his grip on his sword before lifting and kicking his leg violently into the ground, a broken yell tearing from his lungs. _Not again_. He can’t...he _can’t_ lose - he _won’t_ lose anyone else-

He can’t bear the glimpses of Nora’s tears and Ren’s stricken face in the corners of his eyes. He fixes his gaze on the ground, following the trail of blood drops out of the alleyway, tracing it and letting his anger bubble over because this once, _just this once_ he’s _sick_ of shoving everything _down-!_

...his eyes follow the trail of blood drops.

_Out of the alleyway._

“Holy-” It disappears under snow. He kicks the snow away carelessly, focused solely on that shade of red, still bright and barely-dried. “He’s not _here_!” Jaune can’t help the breathless laugh that follows, plowing through the snow covering the ground as fast as he can without losing the trail. Not much snow has fallen _over_ the blood, but it’s sunken past the snow already present and melted any around it. “Guys, c’mon!”

Ren pockets his scroll, bringing one foot sweeping in a wide, low arc to uncover as much as he can. The trail points down the road; Nora bounces on the balls of her feet and Jaune only needs to nod once before she zips away, ducking in whichever alleys look promising and trying to find Oscar on speed alone.

Jaune draws his sword, eyeing the space around them critically. Whatever caused that much blood...he has no doubt it’s still around - if it’s a Grimm, probably attracted to the pain and weariness Oscar must be radiating in waves. If not...well. They’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

He also keeps an eye out for Oscar. He has no doubt how hard it would be to spot the kid in the nooks and crannies of Mantle’s outskirts (he’s just so _small_ ) and if Oscar couldn’t reply?

Fine. He’s _worried_. And after today, Jaune thinks his worry is one hundred percent backed and warranted. Ren’s narrowed eyes and tense posture at his side makes him think he’s not the only one caught in a similar, tired concern.

“We’ll find him,” Ren mutters. His words are barely there, but louder than anything else he could’ve possibly said. “We will.”

Jaune replies with a weak laugh. “That’s my line,” he protests half-heartedly. Ren raises an eyebrow, unamused. “Yeah, okay. Got it. Consider me soothed.”

Ren only shakes his head and turns to face forwards, but their quiet search doesn’t last much longer. Nora doesn’t even call for them at first - her rambling spills from the alleyway she’s in and only picks up steam, louder and faster. Jaune exchanges a look with Ren before they jog down the road and skid to a stop at the entrance to her alleyway.

“-we were _SO_ worried, don’t you EVER run off like that without a partner that is just _Common Sense_ , _Oscar, please-_ ” Nora kneels barely a few feet into the space between buildings, one hand bracing the back of Oscar’s neck and the other cupping his face, thumb resting against his temple. Jaune lands on his knees beside them both, reaching to take Oscar’s hand in both of his as Oscar’s eyelids drift, opening slightly before falling shut before opening again. He looks as if he’s merely trying to resist sleep, but his irises flare a few times before he settles.

“Nora?” He mumbles her name, the sound of it weak and raw but _there_ , and that’s _all_ that matters. “How’d you….find us…?”

All three of them stiffen at _us_ , surprised above all else, but Ren’s the first to shake it off. “How’d you end up down here?” He counters gently, and his hands hover above Oscar’s shoulders. “I could calm him into a sleep. Painless. We can get him back to the others and some help much faster.”

Nora looks to him - they both do, and Jaune swallows before nodding. “Do it,” he replies, his own hands beginning to glow with his aura, palms large enough to nearly envelop Oscar’s cold hand entirely. “I’ll boost him. If we can just help the bleeding…”

And with their youngest between them like this, Jaune and Ren’s auras beginning to warm him, their concern bleeding through their energy; with Nora by his head, careful and gentle and humming an oddly comforting tune - Jaune leans back to sit on his heels and to let the tension drain from his shoulders.

They found him. He didn’t lose anyone else. And maybe - even after all that's happened - maybe they would be okay.


End file.
